Armor protection is needed in vehicles which are to be driven in dangerous areas. Armored automobiles have been available for several decades, being manufactured by the BMU Co. in Germany and others. Such vehicles are used by heads of state, presidents, heads of large organizations and anyone who is prepared to pay the high cost thereof. The high cost of such vehicles results from the efforts needed to make room for armor and attempts at minimizing the loss of performance inevitably resulting from the increased vehicle weight. In sea vessels and military equipment such as tanks the extra weight is usually accepted. For automobiles the extra weight increases fuel consumption at a time when crude oil has reached a price of around $100 per barrel. Armor has been tried for the protection of vital areas of an aircraft and helicopter, although any attempt at complete armoring results in an aircraft which is useless due to its high weight.
These conditions have led to the conclusion that armoring the complete vehicle is impractical in many civilian land vehicles and all aircraft. Users understand that an automobile is not an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) and that protection is confined to small arms fire, shell fragments, stones and other small projectiles. The armor used is restricted to protection of its most vital part—the driver or pilot thereof. After all, it is possible to continue using most vehicles even after a few bullets have punctured the outer skin thereof. Thus personal driver or pilot armor systems have been developed, these requiring armor coverage of a much smaller area, and hence imposing an acceptable weight penalty.
An additional consideration is cost. For lowest cost, armor is made of steel, preferably of a projectile-resistant grade. In applications where low weight is a more important consideration than cost, armor is made with a synthetic plastic fiber, e.g. Kevlar, or/and with a multitude of small ceramic pellets held in an array by a cast matrix. Reducing the area to be protected by positioning the armor close to an essential component, or close to the person to be protected reduces the area of armor needed and thus brings both weight and cost within acceptable limits. An extreme close-to-body armor is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,793,291 to Kocher. This patent proposes a variety of means for transferring the weight of the armor from the body of the driver/passenger directly to the vehicle. No head protection is seen. A further problem—users are of different sizes and the armor would need to be tailored to each user.
Prior art armoring of vehicles is seen, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,477 to Kovatch who discloses a device wherein a sheet of transparent armor may be slid into position behind a standard windshield. The '477 patent does not offer protection from side fired ballistic threats or from high angle ballistic threats (fired through the top front portion of the roof from assailant above). More importantly the weight of and the multiplicity of parts of such armor would preclude its being practical for most uses to deploy or move from vehicle to vehicle. In addition the use of such panels involves extensive mounting apparatus. As is known, drilling a single hole in a new automobile voids the manufacturer's guarantee.
Barbaza et al. disclose a composite armored seat in U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,536. The seat is primarily intended for use in helicopters, has no front shield, and is not removable by the user.
A removable bullet-resistant apparatus is disclosed by Madden, Jr. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,487,323. Provision is made for armoring the windshield and the rear windows, which would require a different size for every car model. No provision is made for armoring the rest of the vehicle.
Madden proposes in U.S. Pat. No. 5,811,719 to provide a flexible bullet-resistant curtain made of an aramid fiber is disposed in the hollow door of the vehicle.
A further armored seat, also for helicopters is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,073,884 to Layergne. The armor is not readily removable and no visor is seen.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,164,181 to Bruner discloses a vehicle seat ballistic shield to protect passenger sitting on a seat from rearward originating projectiles. There is no provision for protection against projectiles fired from other angles.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,857 to Newkirk discloses a bullet-protective shield mounting to the back side of a sun visor of a motor vehicle. This shield however provides protection from forward or side originating threats depending on the position of the pivot arm and will provide very limited protection for the user. In addition both the weight of effective bullet resistant materials would require extensive changes to the vehicles visors in order to support such an apparatus.
Similarly, in US 2006/0243126, there is described a personal armor system comprising a plurality of armor components, wherein each component is configured for selective use in a plurality of different roles including in different types of vehicles. Among the many armor components described in said application there is described a sun visor armor component which is defined as an armor component which may be mounted behind or in front of the flip down sun visor, said sun visor protector being described therein as having a size of about 22 cm×13 cm and a weight of about 0.87 kg.
Also described in said application are window armor components comprising oblong panels of transparent or grid material which are stuck to the windows by mechanical fixings in addition to conventional suction fixings.
Missing in the prior art is a protective system which can be used fully deployed in dangerous areas, providing good coverage of the chest, neck and head areas of the user, and can easily be removed when the vehicle is to be used in safe areas.